Reading, Writing and Wellness: Libraries Try Out Telehealth Kiosks

In New Mexico, new kiosks in libraries look to attract underserved populations by downplaying healthcare uses

A new project in New Mexico is introducing telehealth kiosks to libraries across the state in an effort to improve access to care in one of the nation’s most rural states.

And the key to success may be in not telling anyone it’s a telehealth kiosk.

“The nice thing about the soundproof booths is it doesn’t say ‘telehealth’ all over it,” Deirdre Caporoso, MLIS, the outreach and community engagement librarian for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, said in a recent story published by UNM Health Sciences. “It doesn’t say ‘health’ all over it or ‘clinic’ or anything like that. It’s a very anonymous booth that can actually be used for a wide variety of things."

Kiosks have a checkered history in healthcare, but the potential for delivering virtual care to hard-to-reach communities and populations is undeniable. That’s why Caporoso, armed with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Telemedicine & Distance Learning grant program and the Network of the National Library of Medicine and in a partnership with the New Mexico State Library, is coordinating the installation of four telehealth booths in libraries across the state, along with training staff on how to assist people using the kiosks.

[Read also: How URMC’s Telehealth Model Will Tackle SDOH.]

“There are a lot of digital inequities in this state,” Caporoso said in the UNM story. “We still have a lot of communities that don’t have access to any sort of high-speed Internet on a regular basis. But we do have a lot of public libraries—and public libraries have high-speed Internet.”

It’s not an entirely new idea, innovative healthcare leaders looking to expand their reach into communities and rural areas have started programs in libraries, banks, community centers, retail centers, even barbershops and hair salons. Some projects start with just a cubicle and a laptop, while others use kiosks or enclosed rooms.

One key consideration in driving traffic to the kiosks is making them unobtrusive, even almost invisible. Access to care may be a critical barrier in rural and remote areas, but that doesn’t mean people will go out of their way to use a kiosk or booth.  

The booths in this program are deliberately low-tech. They’re soundproof, standalone rooms, equipped with a computer connected to the library’s wi-fi network, a microphone and a video camera. They’re big enough to fit a couple people and wheelchair-accessible.

“In New Mexico, so many New Mexican families are multigenerational, and many people are not comfortable seeing a provider on their own,” Caporoso said. “So Grandma can bring an additional person, or mother can go in with a child, pretty comfortably.”

“Sometimes, telehealth is used for things like therapy—support for people that are meeting with different types of mental-health counselors, substance-abuse counselors,” she added. “They need somewhere really private. A lot of people don’t have private places at home. They’re living in smaller homes, larger families. They’re much more comfortable going to the library, where they can go into this nice, comfortable little booth and know that nobody can hear them.”

And they can be used for other purposes, a key attraction for the libraries that deploy them. In the Mescalero Community Library on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, the kiosk will also be used by the tribal language program for language recordings.

Four kiosks have been installed so far, and plans call for an additional 10 to be placed in libraries across the state this fall and early next year.

“New Mexico—it’s a rural state,” Caparoso told UNM Health Sciences. “We have fantastic resources, and our rural towns are definitely one of our greatest resources, but they are lacking access to healthcare. Healthcare is like food and water. People need it in order to get through their day. Telehealth makes it so much safer for people to access healthcare, simply because they don’t have to get in their car and drive maybe six hours to see a doctor. Being able to eliminate a full day in a car is huge for so many people in many communities.”